An Eye on the Event

Three political poles currently dominate Israel’s day-to-day political life in the run-up to the elections for the twenty-sixth Knesset, scheduled for October 27. The first is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, allied with the most extreme currents of religious Zionism. Facing him is Naftali Bennett of the nationalist right, in alliance with centrist Yair Lapid. The third, emerging from the military establishment, is former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who may prove to be Netanyahu’s most dangerous rival. Opinion polls shift constantly. Yet one fact has remained unchanged so far: none of the three poles appears capable of achieving the breakthrough needed to form the next government. What their electoral platforms share most strikingly is an absence: no issue genuinely connected to the rights of the Palestinian people or their future in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip occupies any meaningful place, while the role of Arab parties in Israel is ignored. Anyone following the daily negotiations and observing the internal maneuvering behind both declared and secret alliances can grasp the extent of the opportunism and the pervasive logic of political blackmail governing relations among parties and political forces. This is particularly true of smaller formations and those betting on their ability to tip the balance, such as Avigdor Lieberman, a secular Zionist, as well as representatives of religious parties engaged in constant one-upmanship over extremism and demands. From that perspective, the way these forces deal with the Palestinians becomes understandable within the same logic, morally as well, once one adds the psychological barrier created by the October 7 attack, which erected a wall higher and uglier still than the concrete separation barrier. In this context, one may conclude that the coming elections will differ from previous ones in several respects. For Netanyahu, their outcome is an existential political and personal reckoning: either he remains in government or he ends up in prison. This has driven him to intensify his efforts to put his own house in order, against the backdrop of the wars unfolding in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and the Golan. The blood of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians has thus become fuel for the current electoral campaign. Meanwhile, Knesset member Tzvi Sukkot, from Religious Zionism, declared: “We kill one hundred women and children in a single night and nobody cares. So why not kill more? The process of dehumanizing the Palestinians is now complete.” These remarks were reported in an article by journalist Jack Khoury published in Haaretz on May 18, 2025. What is now unfolding in multiple forms throughout the West Bank, and what is being called the “settlers’ revolt,” seeks to settle the fate of the West Bank once and for all in favor of annexation and the imposition of Israeli sovereignty. This shift reflects the movement of the overwhelming majority of Israelis away from the secular, democratic Zionist current once embodied by the labor movement, particularly at the time of the state’s founding. None of the three poles disputes the substance of Sukkot’s remarks, even when Netanyahu feels compelled to describe the ugliest forms of violence merely as “riots” that damage Israel’s image. Nor do the three poles fundamentally differ over the implementation of the E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem, except on formal aspects that do nothing to alter the course of events. This means that whoever wins the coming elections will not depart from this trajectory. The two-state solution is rejected by the prevailing Israeli mindset, while the destruction of the Palestinian political and administrative entity will continue to be regarded as a necessity enabling the completion of annexation, Judaization, and the extension of sovereignty over “Judea and Samaria,” in their terminology. A Dangerous Parting of Ways After kites were found near the Nahal Oz settlement, behind the security fence surrounding the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army announced, after examining them, that no suspicious or dangerous substances had been found. Israeli threats of escalation nevertheless followed. Hamas cadres were arrested, and the air force carried out strikes on hospitals and tents, killing civilians. At the same time, Israeli diplomacy has been speaking in international forums about the existential threat posed by these kites and their thin strings, while those who have lost their lives disappear from the debate. Military-level statements have also indicated that the next phase would involve plans and thinking that could lead to a renewed occupation of Gaza City in order to eliminate what remains of Hamas. Through this Gaza model, combined with what is taking place in the West Bank after Palestinians have been stripped of their humanity, an electoral equation emerges in which the number of dead and wounded steadily rises in order to harvest votes. We simply do not know how much more blood will have to be shed for one party to gain an additional seat in the next Knesset. All this, while the world witnesses in sound and image what is happening every day, points to the end of the secular and socialist Zionist project in whose name the State of Israel claimed to be a democratic oasis in the Arab desert and the representative of Western civilization in a Middle East portrayed as savage. The debate within Israeli elites calling for entry into a post-Zionist phase and for solutions based on recognition of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination also appears to have come to an end. These elections inaugurate a dangerous parting of ways, nourished by biblical myths and Talmudic rituals, in the service of the triumph of the idea of Greater Israel across the 27,000 square kilometers and more of historic Palestine, to which other occupied and annexed territories, such as the Golan, could be added. It was also in this alarming context that an open letter signed by 102 former British and French diplomats was published, stating that “Palestine is being erased before the eyes of the world.” In the letter, dated August 22, they called on the British and French governments to implement the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, suspend certain forms of economic and military cooperation, take concrete measures against investments linked to settlements, and use British and French political and economic influence to preserve the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state. The response of governments, however, remains far below what is required. The transformation of “democratic” Israel into a “biblical” Israel makes the challenge facing the Palestinian and Arab peace camp even more complex. It now goes beyond the mere ability to preserve the Palestinian political entity and revives the idea of historic Palestine as the counterpoint to Greater Israel. And insofar as the birth of the State of Israel was a European-American undertaking, fairness demands that the birth of the State of Palestine be one as well.

The last dance of death began with the 2007 coup against the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority, a direct consequence of the emergence of dual power after Ismail Haniyeh was elected prime minister. His primary task, however, was to implement the policy of the popularly elected president of the Authority, within a hybrid electoral system under which voters elect half the members of the Legislative Council through a single-member district system, casting their ballots directly for individual candidates, while the other half are elected through party lists, with the entire territory treated as a single electoral district. The number of seats won by each list is determined according to the percentage of votes it receives. As defined by the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian National Authority is a body exercising limited self-rule over three categories of areas in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, each governed by its own security and administrative arrangements. These operate amid overlapping powers between the Palestinian security services and the Israeli occupation army, alongside systematic settler activity, backed by security and military protection and by financial resources enabling the construction and expansion of settlements in the West Bank. At the same time, the Palestinian National Authority was grappling with two major issues: the first concerned the fate of East Jerusalem; the second, the question of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the diaspora, who in fact make up roughly half of the Palestinian population. The foregoing reveals a profound problem in the policies adopted to devise solutions capable of meeting Palestinian aspirations without colliding with the effort to produce a historic settlement with the State of Israel, one that would lead to its withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. At the heart of this problem was the fact that the Palestinian National Authority based its policies on adherence to international political legitimacy and, as the authority created by the Oslo Accords, relied on the political and legal framework they had established. Hamas, once it gained representation within the Authority, based its decisions and positions instead on the concept of historical and religious right, rather than on the concept of political right as recognized by the international community. This gave rise to an objective conflict between historical right and political right, a conflict for which it was difficult to find a workable formula for coexistence within a single authority. Coexistence between the presidency of the Authority and the premiership thus collapsed within a year of the elections, paving the way for the confrontation that ended with Hamas’s takeover of the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority in the Gaza Strip in 2007. An Impossible Coexistence Ismail Haniyeh’s government won the confidence of the Legislative Council at the end of March 2006. Yet coexistence with the Palestinian presidency quickly unraveled, reaching its climax in June 2007, when Hamas security forces launched a broad assault on the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority in the Gaza Strip. According to United Nations figures, the clashes left 161 people dead, including 41 civilians, 11 women and 7 children, and around 700 injured. What happened suggests that the movement’s leadership failed to appreciate the scale of its popular electoral victory. It also lost the political flexibility that might have allowed coexistence to continue for at least a few more years within a fledgling Palestinian democracy. The bloody method of resolution likewise reflected the predominance of security and military thinking over all other considerations and demonstrated a choice to seize the levers and institutions of power by force, even though the prime minister and many ministers themselves belonged to the movement. In this sense, the democratic process did not appear, in the movement leadership’s view, to be an end in itself so much as a means of reaching power and taking control of its institutions. The effects of division and the takeover persisted for nearly two decades, during which the democratic process was paralyzed not only in the Gaza Strip but, by extension, in the West Bank, the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and trade-union life as well. This led to the continuous erosion of national institutions and to the predominance of emergency and temporary policies over state-building policies with a clear strategic dimension, until managing division became a substitute for building the institutions of a state. As for Hamas rule in Gaza, it moved toward strengthening its security apparatus to consolidate control, while building military capacity to resist the occupation. This time, however, following Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, confrontation no longer relied primarily on suicide attacks, but on rockets and military operations launched from tunnels and underground positions. In parallel, the “tunnel culture” became part of economic life in the Strip, with tunnels used to bring in goods and commodities for both civilian and military purposes. At one stage, the “tunnel economy” was even presented as a solution to a deteriorating economy, while unemployment exceeded 40 percent of the labor force and poverty rates rose to record levels. For the Hamas leadership, this reality was not sufficient reason to reconsider its model of government. Its social and economic cost was instead treated as the price of “holy jihad” and confrontation with the occupation, waged through rockets fired from a distance and operations launched from underground. At the same time, the movement was conducting permanent negotiations on a parallel track with Fatah and the other factions in search of national reconciliation among “brothers.” In other words, the de facto authority in Gaza combined the entrenchment of division on the one hand with the management of reconciliation talks on the other, a political paradox that persisted for many years. Reconciliation Games Hamas was shocked by victory, just as Fatah was shocked by defeat. One effect of the shock of victory was that confusion and hesitation came to dominate positions and statements, reflecting a degree of apprehension among those who had never tested themselves in government before and who only took the reins of power for the first time after winning the elections. After decades of exaggerated mobilization around claims of integrity, abstention from power and its corrupting influence, and devotion to struggle and martyrdom, the position of Islamic Jihad deepened this confusion. The organization announced that it would refuse to sign the “National Conciliation Document” issued by the leadership of the prisoners’ movement in Israeli jails, on the grounds of its continued rejection of the Oslo Accords, which formed the political and legal basis of the Palestinian National Authority. It declared that it would remain faithful to its jihadist line, away from power and the corruption it brings. Most factions, by contrast, signed the document known as the “Prisoners’ Document,” which contained provisions combining support for the PLO’s effort to establish an independent Palestinian state with the adoption of resistance within the framework of national consensus. These provisions were later transformed into the “National Conciliation Document for Comprehensive Dialogue,” adopted in Ramallah and Gaza on June 25 and 26, 2006. Yet these attempts failed to produce a formula for national partnership in power until Saudi Arabia entered the reconciliation process, leading to what became known as the “Mecca Agreement” in February 2007. The agreement went beyond the National Conciliation Document and moved toward establishing an actual partnership and division of power between the two poles of the Palestinian political system, Fatah and Hamas, and between the presidency and the premiership. On this basis, Ismail Haniyeh’s government was formed in March 2007. Yet the spring of reconciliation lasted less than three months. Everything collapsed in early June that same year, when forces and security agencies affiliated with Hamas seized the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority in the Gaza Strip, viewing this as the shortest route to monopolizing power and returning once again to a policy of accusations of treason and exclusion. This situation continued for four years before Egyptian mediation intervened again, leading to the “Cairo Agreement” in May 2011. Failure was repeated, and this time Qatar advanced a new initiative that led to what became known as the “Doha Declaration” in February 2012. Then came the “Beach Agreement” in Gaza in April 2014, which succeeded in forming a national consensus government headed by Rami Hamdallah. It too did not last long, however, and the chain of reconciliation initiatives was broken for nearly three years before Egypt renewed its role in sponsoring the reconciliation process in 2017, culminating in the second “Cairo Agreement.” Algeria then made its own attempt to produce reconciliation in 2022 through what became known as the “Algiers Declaration.” The final episode in this succession of initiatives came from China, which sponsored an understanding between Fatah and Hamas and led to what was called the “Beijing Declaration” in July 2024, without that declaration becoming an implementable agreement either. We thus ended up with a long series of attempted agreements, with Arab and foreign states involved in mediation and sponsorship, while the Palestinian National Authority continued to pursue a policy of flexibility and accommodation. Yet the net result remained zero. Public cynicism toward the process became widespread in Palestinian society, to the point that the principal negotiators appeared to have nothing new left to discuss. A common saying emerged that what was taking place amounted to nothing more than “reconciliation tourism,” a repeated performance of a scene in which little remained to be hidden after the dirty laundry had been aired in public. After Al-Aqsa Flood Next November, when the elections scheduled for the Legislative Council are due to take place, if they are indeed held, they will fall in the first month of the fourth year of “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the attack that generated an ongoing war of extermination and displacement at varying levels, one that ceasefire agreements and blockade alike have failed to end. For the spilling of Jewish blood, as in the October 7, 2023 attack, is treated as license to spill Palestinian blood and more, becoming a new banner for an enduring conflict after the failure of the first historic settlement through the Oslo Accords. Everyone has come to understand that dismantling Oslo from either side is far easier than building a complex peace process. It is enough for a gunman to shoot Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin while he is calling on Israelis to embrace peace for the entire edifice to collapse, and enough for Hamas to carry out a suicide attack for the Palestinian National Authority’s inability to protect its people to be exposed. The Israeli army then resumes its functions as an army of occupation, while settlers move forward with the construction of additional settlements, leading ultimately to the imposition of Israeli sovereignty over most of the West Bank. At the same time, Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir calls for dozens of Palestinians to be killed every day, permanently and systematically, until Gazans are convinced they must emigrate. The present scene is deeply connected to a series of mistakes committed by the Palestinian National Authority in managing its internal conflict with all those who contributed to a return to violence. This lies at the root of the failure of the continuing attempts, over four decades, to produce a formula for joint action between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas. In this regard, the author of these lines wrote the following conclusion two years ago, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence on November 15: “The question of reconciliation is not the responsibility of Fatah, since the movement’s political weight does not entitle it to lead this process, but rather allows it to help bring it about. Nor can any reconciliation be discussed, or any dialogue conducted, in a way that bypasses the social and political contract represented by the ‘Palestinian Declaration of Independence,’ as the highest reference document for all, until the promised Palestinian constitution is completed. Likewise, Hamas’s considerable weight does not give it the right to disavow the social and political contract as long as Palestinian society remains committed to it and continues to struggle in accordance with it. Hamas, as a movement in rebellion against the political order grounded in the Palestinian national interest, has no right to set the rules of dialogue for reconciliation, even if the factions agree with it, because undermining legitimacy and departing from it is the starting point for the failure of dialogue. This is what we witnessed in the ‘Beijing Declaration.’ Likewise, identifying Hamas’s rebellion as an internal rebellion requires the Palestinian Authority to engage it in dialogue only on Palestinian soil, not in any capital. The logic and purpose of reconciliation are based on bringing the movement back within the framework of legitimacy through a change in its behavior and policies, not by bending legitimacy and the law or bypassing the substance and text of the ‘Declaration of Independence.’ The repeated talk of ‘reforming the Palestine Liberation Organization,’ rebuilding it, ‘sanctifying national consensus,’ and all the terms derived from these expressions, which have no precise meaning or credible definition, merely serves to paper over contradictions in favor of a tribal approach that usually ends in accusations of treason. It weakens our national choices and opens us up to agendas that are not Palestinian.” Finally, our understanding, conduct and strategies for building the State of Palestine must be reconsidered on the basis that it cannot afford to conflate the concepts of revolution and the philosophy of old liberation movements, on the one hand, with the concepts of state-building in the contemporary world, on the other. In this brief overview, it is worth noting that the Palestinian National Authority committed two errors that have never been discussed with the methodological rigor required to preserve the political order grounded in the Palestinian national interest. The first error occurred during the transitional phase of implementing the Oslo Accords, from 1993 to 2000, when President Yasser Arafat adopted a policy of containment, accommodation and fraternity toward Hamas, even as the movement was openly waging war to bring down the agreement and practicing violence through suicide attacks. In practice, this entrenched the duality of power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The second error occurred during preparations for the second Legislative Council elections in early 2006, when Hamas was allowed to participate without first declaring its adherence to the national choices established by the “Declaration of Independence” and to the Authority’s commitments toward Israel and the international community. This error was not linked solely to President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision. It was also connected to the exceptional pressure Washington exerted at the time. The relevant archival documents must therefore be made public so that we can objectively assess the event and its continuing consequences for the fledgling Palestinian political system. The paradox is that Hamas adapted to the laws and rules of the Oslo Accords while continuing to raise the slogan of bringing them down to this day. Disregarding the major national choices enshrined in these documents, together with the duality of power, shattered the internal sources of strength of the Palestinian political system and enabled the opponents of Palestinian statehood to pursue their policies, as we are witnessing today. Finally, the failure of the settlement between the two peoples can be summed up in the success of extremism on both sides in reproducing violence, and in the failure to achieve justice. The political settlement crafted by the ruling elites lacks a concept of historic reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, a reconciliation protected by social forces with an interest in rejecting violence and grounded in justice.

The Muslim Brotherhood moved from preaching and proselytizing to political and jihadist activity in Palestine by restructuring its organization, which took the form of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. This transformation was accompanied by a considerable expansion of its popular base. The movement then sought to impose its own conception of the Palestinian interest, as discussed in the first part of this analysis. In its declared political stance, Hamas relied on two main pillars: overturning the Oslo Accords and denouncing the Palestinian Authority’s governance failures and corruption. At the same time, it promoted the slogans of reform and change, targeting the Authority, its ministries and agencies, as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the institutional framework of Palestinian representation endowed with official status and international legitimacy. As for its jihadist, military, and security activities, these provided the emerging movement with the gateway through which it transformed itself from a closed, elitist partisan group into a broad-based popular movement. This transformation took place through the use of violence during what it called the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Hamas then pushed its use of violence as far as its capabilities allowed, convinced that suicidal jihad would lead to the liberation of Jerusalem and the entirety of Palestinian territory from Zionist occupation. This orientation followed the revolutionary model of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the alliance with Hafez al-Assad’s regime in Syria, as though these two experiences alone embodied both the Arab and Islamic worlds! By the end of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and after the death of President Yasser Arafat, the internal Palestinian balance of power was shifting in Hamas’s favor. As the January 2006 legislative elections approached, a fatwa was issued authorizing participation in the vote, without dwelling on the laws governing it, its connection to the Oslo Accords, or the Palestinian Authority’s commitments toward Israel and the international community. The movement relied on its broad popular base, which supported armed struggle in all its forms, while maintaining its slogan calling for the “downfall of the agreement of betrayal.” Drawing strength from this new popular footing, it entered the elections under the banner of “Change and Reform.” The Test of Power Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats in the Legislative Council, securing a majority. Its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, became prime minister alongside the elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas did not demand that Hamas alter its party platform, any more than he required this of the other factions participating in government. He did, however, stress the need for the government and all institutions of the Authority to abide by the agreements signed with Israel and by existing commitments toward the international community. This position rested on an essential distinction between, on the one hand, parties and factions with their respective programs and, on the other, the institution exercising governmental authority, which was supposed to represent the Palestinian political entity. In principle, this is a distinction observed in parliamentary systems and modern states. Looking back at the electoral platform under which Hamas ran beneath the banner of “Change and Reform,” one finds a political document containing provisions on national principles and resistance, the protection of political freedoms and pluralism, the peaceful transfer of power, the rejection of internal fighting, respect for minority rights, the prohibition of political arrests, the fight against corruption, and judicial reform. The platform also called for Islamic Sharia to become the sole source of legislation, alongside a range of social and economic provisions that, for the most part, scarcely differed from those supported by other Palestinian political forces. The program contained eighteen sections, each broken down into a number of detailed points. Yet this document, which represented Hamas’s first major democratic test in the exercise of power, did not long withstand the reality of the institutional duality that emerged between the presidency of the Authority and the premiership. Less than a year and a half later, this duality culminated in armed confrontation, followed by Hamas’s forcible takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The events surrounding this internal conflict exposed a stark contradiction between the electoral platform’s pledges to uphold pluralism, reject internecine fighting, and ensure the peaceful transfer of power, and a political practice that ultimately resorted to force to settle the struggle for power. Hundreds of members of the security forces, factional militants, and civilians were killed or wounded in those clashes. Since then, the Palestinian arena has entered a phase of political and geographical division between two rival authorities. The problem did not lie in Hamas’s transition from opposition to government as such. That is, after all, the essence of democracy. But taking power confronted its ideological discourse with a very different test: how does a political doctrine become a governing project? There is a fundamental difference between possessing a mobilizing discourse capable of rallying public support while in opposition and governing a society afflicted by poverty, unemployment, blockade, occupation, and deteriorating public services, a society that needs, above all, education, healthcare, jobs, development, justice, and sound administration. Here lies one of the structural dilemmas of religious fundamentalism: its capacity to produce a political discourse that derives much of its strength from a religious frame of reference, set against the difficulty of translating that frame of reference into a coherent program for economics, development, culture, and public administration. This difficulty is not unique to the Palestinian experience. It has appeared, to varying degrees, in other Islamist experiences, from Iran to Sudan, Somalia, and Tunisia, whenever ideology collided with the realities and complexities of society, and whenever politics became an extension of doctrine rather than a sphere for managing competing interests within society. In the Palestinian case, the dilemma was even more complex. Hamas had not taken power in a fully sovereign state, but within an Authority with limited powers, under occupation, in a society subjected to blockade, while Israel continued to control borders, airspace, waters, and crossings and retained the ability to separate Palestinian territories and control the movement of people, goods, and resources. In such an environment, any political project aspiring to govern should have placed development, improved living conditions, and institutional management at the top of its priorities, while clearly defining the relationship between resistance and the requirements of governance. Yet Hamas gradually came to place the armed conflict with Israel at the center of its political and security activity. Thus, the transition to power did not lead to a separation between the movement’s partisan and ideological function and the role of governmental institutions. Instead, it reproduced the conflict within the institutions of power themselves. From that point on, the paradox that would accompany the Hamas experience became increasingly clear: a movement that came to power through elections, yet proved unable to establish a stable separation between its ideological project as a movement and the requirements of governance as an authority. This paradox would ultimately lead from “Change and Reform” as an electoral slogan to the establishment of a de facto authority born of division and military force. Power and War Since taking control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas has fought four major wars and dozens of intermittent clashes, in addition to two wars during which it remained on the sidelines while Islamic Jihad confronted the Israeli military alone. Just as major Israeli operations bore symbolic names drawn from Zionist religious imagery, Hamas, too, gave its battles names laden with Islamic religious references: Al-Furqan in 2009, Hijarat al-Sijjil in 2012, Al-Asf al-Ma’kul in 2014, Sword of Jerusalem in 2021, and finally the “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Over the course of these confrontations, the al-Qassam Brigades developed their rocket-launching capabilities and tunnel network, devoting considerable sums of money and significant human resources to both. Across the first four wars, whose combined duration approached one hundred days, the death toll exceeded 4,000, while tens of thousands more, civilians and combatants alike, were wounded. The wars also caused extensive destruction of buildings, infrastructure, and homes. If these wars were subjected to serious study and analysis in terms of their causes, immediate consequences, and long-term effects, one would find that they constituted the principal factor holding together Hamas’s military and security apparatus. Ongoing confrontation with the Israeli military allows Hamas to preserve this cohesion and prolong its rule, while also allowing it to deflect responsibility for its failures in governing a blockaded territory whose economy relied heavily on tunnels and smuggling. The poverty rate in the Gaza Strip reached 60 percent, while unemployment rose to 45 percent, three times the level recorded in the West Bank. Whereas Gaza’s gross domestic product represented 31 percent of total Palestinian GDP in 2006, its share had fallen to 17 percent of the Palestinian economy by 2022 under Hamas rule. These figures reveal the reality of failure in the management of public affairs when political choices are elevated to the status of religious obligations and linked to slogans invoking the afterlife. Death then becomes a form of spiritual ascent to be celebrated, with congratulations offered to the organization and the family when the fallen is a fighter. By contrast, the death of a civilian is merely mourned, although that civilian was never entrusted with any mission and, above all, was never consulted, whether single or responsible for a family, losing his life, or even the lives of his family, without ever having chosen such a fate. In this way, the impasses of governance are projected onto the permanent conflict with the occupation. Any criticism, objection, or demand can then be cast as an assault on the sacred or, at the very least, as an abandonment of the struggle against the occupation and, more often than not, as high treason. However harsh and bitter the consequences may be, the movement’s leaders continue, in their political discourse and public statements, to mobilize religious terminology, Quranic verses, and Prophetic hadiths in order to convince the population that it is advancing toward Israel’s defeat and the liberation of Jerusalem. They even proclaim “the inevitable disappearance of the Zionist entity”, just as some nationalists and leftists once proclaimed “the coming defeat of global imperialism and its protégé, Israel”. This pattern was reproduced year after year under Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, until the “Al-Aqsa Flood” of October 2023.

Israel’s victory in the June War and its renewed occupation of the Gaza Strip lifted the nightmare of the Egyptian regime from the Muslim Brotherhood, following a confrontation triggered by the attempted assassination of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in Manshiyya, Alexandria, in 1954. At the time, the Egyptian authorities accused the “Brotherhood” of plotting the attack and launched a sweeping campaign of arrests targeting its leading figures, including Sayyid Qutb, the foremost theorist of political Islam’s approach to power. A decade later, after Abdul Salam Arif became president of Iraq, his mediation secured Sayyid Qutb’s release. The episode did not, however, lead to reconciliation. Qutb was arrested again, accused of establishing a clandestine organization aimed at overthrowing the Egyptian regime by force, and sentenced to death. He refused to appeal for clemency in exchange for a commutation of his sentence and was hanged on August 29, 1966. A few months later, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip for the second time. The defeat of the Egyptian regime marked the beginning of a resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestinian cities, particularly in the newly occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There, the “Brotherhood” operated as a religious outreach movement seeking to reform the individual and society. It built a network of mosques, schools, and charitable associations, without offering the population any real political program beyond a call for reform and a return to religion according to its own understanding and interpretation. At the same time, the Palestinian national movement embraced armed struggle as the path toward the liberation of Palestine, both from within the Palestinian territories and across the borders of the Arab confrontation states: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Although the Palestinian national movement, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated the political landscape and enjoyed broad popular support throughout the Middle East, the Islamist movement patiently pursued its long-term work. It benefited from Israel’s policy of turning a blind eye to its activities, to the point that some of its institutions obtained permits from the occupation army to operate. In its religious outreach activities, the “Brotherhood” gave priority to shaping the individual and society according to its particular conception of Islam. Its approach to dealing with the occupation army did not entail the kind of confrontation advocated by the secular, leftist, and nationalist forces of the Palestinian national movement. It thus created a social environment of its own, relatively isolated from the majority of Palestinian society, while also becoming a safe haven for those unwilling to bear the consequences of the armed and violent confrontation pursued by the factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Consequently, neither its public discourse nor the conduct of its leaders and members placed it in a position of confrontation with the occupation. In this manner, it accumulated influence slowly and gradually. Twenty years passed during which the Brotherhood quietly and steadily developed its internal mechanisms. It accumulated considerable experience in sustained, organized work among its cadres, with significant support from the Muslim Brotherhood’s international networks. It also allowed a degree of individual participation by members who wished to fight in the major battles waged by the Palestine Liberation Organization, but always through military structures with no organizational ties to the Brotherhood, such as the Palestine Liberation Army, the al-Assifa Forces, or under other names that did not make the Muslim Brotherhood directly responsible for the participation of individual members in any battle, large or small. This situation continued until the outbreak of the “Stone Intifada” in 1987, when the Brotherhood began participating directly and openly in the uprising, while remaining outside the Unified National Leadership of the Intifada. It was during this major event that the Muslim Brotherhood launched its new organization under the name “Islamic Resistance Movement,” or Hamas. It subsequently established its armed wing, known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. This marked the first transformation of a religious outreach and social movement into an independent political movement, charting a distinct path of its own, separate from the secular national movement. A new fundamental dilemma thus emerged for the Palestinians with the rise of a pole whose conception of the Palestinian national interest differed radically from the one that had prevailed until then and stood in complete opposition to the mainstream orientation embodied by the Palestine Liberation Organization over four decades. The disagreements were not confined to a handful of specific issues. They extended to virtually every question, major and minor. A profound rupture thus began to emerge over the very definition of the policies meant to express the Palestinian national interest, deeper than any division the Palestinian national movement had previously experienced. The division cut vertically through Palestinian society itself and rapidly spread to its trade unions, federations, and grassroots organizations wherever they operated. Even at universities, student organizations proved unable to devise a common framework for student union activity. This was not due to an inherent inability to reach agreement, but rather to the absence of a political framework that would allow agreement even on a basic union program. Dozens of attempts at dialogue were undertaken in an effort to establish common ground, but their results quickly evaporated whenever the fundamental disagreement resurfaced: which authority was entitled to define the Palestinian national interest? The Decisive Turning Point During the years separating the establishment of Hamas from the announcement of the “Oslo Accord,” the new movement adopted slogans that, in some respects, echoed principles espoused by Fatah in its early days. Then came an event that struck the Palestinian political landscape like an unprecedented earthquake, reverberating among the public and the factions, as well as within the political and intellectual elites. The official Palestinian leadership proved unable to provide a convincing political analysis explaining the reasons behind the conclusion of the agreement, either at the international or regional level. Nor did it succeed in explaining the role the “Oslo Accord” could play in addressing the Palestinians’ most pressing needs and priorities, both in the homeland and in the diaspora. Palestinian public opinion consequently split between supporters and opponents of the agreement. It can be argued that a significant part of the support it enjoyed within Fatah rested more on the considerable trust placed in President Yasser Arafat than on any clear explanation of the nature and significance of this turning point, or of the role it was supposed to play in correcting the course of the national struggle. As presented by the Palestinian leadership, the essence of this turning point was a return to the geography of the homeland and the establishment of an internationally recognized Palestinian entity as a step toward independence. This was supposed to entail the national movement’s transition from the stage of an armed liberation movement to that of a movement struggling for independence, relying primarily on political and peaceful struggle and abandoning armed violence as a means of national action. This was what President Arafat declared and formally committed himself to in the documents associated with the agreement. It was therefore hardly surprising that the nationalist and leftist opposition forces within the Palestine Liberation Organization regarded the Oslo Accord as a departure from the principles of the revolution and a retreat from its objectives. In this climate, Hamas found the political opening it had been seeking. It went even further in its characterization of the agreement, describing it as both a national and religious betrayal, based on the Muslim Brotherhood’s conception of Palestine as an Islamic waqf , no part of which anyone had the right to relinquish. Overturning the Oslo Accord thus became a central pillar of Hamas’s political program, with everything else seemingly relegated to secondary importance. Yet from an early stage, the movement’s political practice revealed two parallel tracks. The first consisted of making the fullest possible use of the realities created on the ground by the agreement. Foremost among these were the return of thousands of Palestinians to the homeland, the emergence of a relatively broad sphere of political freedom and open political activity, and the possibility of building party and organizational institutions beyond the direct authority of the occupation. This was in addition to benefiting from the services provided by the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority in healthcare, education, and through its various public institutions and bodies. The movement treated these gains as acquired Palestinian rights rather than as direct outcomes of the Oslo Accord. In the same context, Hamas gradually shifted from a religious position that prohibited participation in municipal, legislative, and presidential elections to one that permitted such participation once its political and organizational outcomes began to serve the movement’s interests and provide it with a broader institutional and popular presence. The second track consisted of continuing to accuse the political leadership that had brought about the Oslo Accord of betrayal, while keeping channels of dialogue with it open whenever necessary in order to secure further political and organizational gains. In doing so, Hamas benefited from the policy pursued by the late President Yasser Arafat, which sought to contain the movement by integrating it into the political process and kept the doors of the Palestinian Authority open to Hamas participation without imposing particularly stringent political conditions. At various stages, the Palestinian Authority refrained from categorically requiring an end to violence, even though the commitment to renounce violence was one of the fundamental commitments undertaken by the Palestinian side on which the process of international recognition of the Palestinian National Authority rested. Meanwhile, armed operations continued, particularly suicide bombings, at moments of acute political sensitivity. At times, they occurred on the eve of Israeli elections or coincided with visits by international envoys, making them a factor capable of influencing Israeli politics and contributing to the rise of its more hard-line forces. It was in this context that an idea began to emerge in Israeli political and media discourse: that operations carried out by Hamas offered hard-line Israeli leaders such as Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu new political opportunities and helped reorder Israeli society’s priorities around security and violence rather than a political settlement. Palestinian religious radicalism thus began, indirectly, to fuel Israeli radicalism, and vice versa. Through Hamas, religious fundamentalism ceased to be merely a religious outreach and ideological discourse and became embodied in a political and military organization capable of directly influencing the course of the conflict and pushing the Palestinian situation back into the cycle of armed violence. The effects of this development were not confined to the Islamist movement. The climate of escalating violence also helped revive armed tendencies among some nationalist and leftist currents. Its influence extended to certain Fatah leadership cadres as well as broad segments of the movement’s supporters and organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The political and social environment that preceded the Second Intifada thus gradually took shape. The uprising quickly abandoned the model of the First Intifada, which had been based on popular disobedience and civil resistance, and shifted toward an open armed confrontation involving multiple Palestinian forces. The Second Intifada was therefore no mere continuation of the first. It gradually evolved into a different model, both in its methods and its consequences. Palestinian armed violence became intertwined with Israeli military and settler violence, drawing both sides into a cycle of mutual escalation in which the Palestinian people were the greatest losers. The Palestinians paid an enormous price in lives and property. At the same time, prospects for a political settlement receded, while forces on the Israeli side that regarded military power and settlement expansion as alternatives to a negotiated settlement grew stronger. Herein lies the great paradox: the Oslo period began as an attempt to move from the logic of revolution to the logic of statehood. Yet within only a few years, it resulted in the reproduction of the logic of armed conflict, albeit in new forms and with new instruments. The way was thus opened to an even harsher phase in Israeli-Palestinian history.

Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage of his attendance at the funeral of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham to make another visit to the White House, after his allies succeeded in persuading President Donald Trump to receive him. This time, however, the visit came through the political back door, denying him the media triumph he had hoped to capitalize on. His subsequent television interview reflected the depth of the predicament he now faces. His facial expressions failed to convey the confidence of a victor, revealing instead a strained smile and an air of defiance. Trump, true to his uncompromising temperament, appears unwilling to be associated with a partner who brings him political liabilities rather than gains. Nevertheless, Netanyahu has shown no willingness to concede failure, or even to acknowledge that it is a possibility. For him, the stakes go far beyond politics, touching directly on his personal and electoral future. Defeat could spell the end of his political career, open the door to legal proceedings, and shatter his ambition to secure his place as the undisputed leader of the State of Israel. Meanwhile, opposition parties have made the establishment of an official and independent commission of inquiry into the events of October 7 one of their foremost electoral priorities. Their objective is to hold those responsible accountable for the failures that enabled Hamas to carry out its attack and for the unprecedented loss of life that followed, even when compared with many conventional wars. The attack also inflicted a profound collective trauma on Israeli society, whose psychological, political, and security repercussions remain evident to this day. Yet the electoral battle extends well beyond October 7. The religious parties allied with Netanyahu continue to insist on exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service, while also demanding gender segregation in certain public spaces. They have threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition if their demands are not met. These disputes come at a time when the Israeli military is facing an increasingly severe manpower crisis. Recruitment has declined steadily, both among Israeli citizens and foreign volunteers, as the risks associated with military service increasingly outweigh its material or symbolic rewards. At the same time, Israel’s economic difficulties continue to deepen under the weight of the soaring cost of war, exceptional security expenditures required by a permanent state of alert, and ongoing military operations across multiple fronts, a reality to which Israeli society had not been accustomed for decades. This political, security, and economic backdrop is essential to understanding what has been unfolding in the West Bank, not only during the past week but throughout the current year. The developments there are not merely a series of isolated security measures. Rather, they form part of a broader effort to reshape both the domestic and regional landscape in ways that serve Benjamin Netanyahu’s political and electoral calculations. Comprehensive Encroachment Settler livestock herders in the West Bank have declared that the limits of their authority extend as far as their herds can graze. Armed as individuals and protected by the Israeli military, they have established dozens of pastoral settlement outposts around East Jerusalem and throughout the Jordan Valley. This strategy has deprived Palestinian Bedouin and pastoral communities of most of their land and of their historic rights as the country’s Indigenous inhabitants. According to United Nations reports issued this year, this systematic policy has also resulted in the demolition of homes and the forced displacement of more than 30,000 members of Bedouin communities. At the same time, livestock numbers have fallen to their lowest level in the West Bank. Large areas of Area C, as defined under the Oslo Accords, have likewise come under expanded Israeli control, despite constituting the vital territorial continuity upon which the concept of a future Palestinian state depends. In parallel, Israel has expanded its control over surface water resources, having already secured control years ago over the West Bank’s principal groundwater aquifer, the largest source of underground water in historic Palestine. Throughout this year, media outlets and human rights organizations have documented repeated attacks against Palestinian farmers, particularly during the olive harvest, aimed at preventing them from reaching their lands and olive groves. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has recorded the uprooting of 2,559 trees, alongside the leveling of extensive agricultural land. Direct losses resulting from the destruction of wells, irrigation networks, and the confiscation of tractors and other farming equipment have exceeded $100 million. According to estimates by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), nearly 72,000 farming families now require emergency assistance, an unprecedented situation for these communities. The measures have not been confined to rural areas. They have also extended to cities and refugee camps. During the first half of the year, approximately 3,600 Palestinians were arrested, including 276 children and 107 women. The total number of Palestinian prisoners is now estimated at around 10,000. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has continued to seal off cities with iron gates and checkpoints while conducting large-scale operations targeting several refugee camps. These operations have destroyed significant portions of the camps, displaced tens of thousands of residents, and transformed parts of them into Israeli military positions. These policies are being implemented openly and in full view of the media. Several ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have openly boasted of the progress made in advancing what they describe as the “Decisive Plan,” championed by the Religious Zionism parties. The plan seeks to extend Israeli sovereignty over all Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, rename them “Judea and Samaria,” and undermine the Palestinian National Authority as the political and institutional framework underpinning the two-state solution. Within this context, developments in the West Bank appear to constitute a central component of the political and electoral battle being waged by Netanyahu’s government as the anticipated elections draw closer before the end of the year. The New Has Yet to Be Born President Trump’s call for Hamas to surrender its weapons did little to embarrass the movement’s leadership, as it offered nothing substantially new beyond what Hamas had already accepted in his twenty-point initiative. The subsequent understandings did not address the individual weapons through which the movement continues to exercise authority inside the Gaza Strip during the transitional period. The latest round of negotiations in Cairo produced only limited understandings. They allowed the Palestinian Administrative Committee and the first contingents of the international force to enter the Rafah and Khan Younis areas, both of which remain under the full control of the Israeli military. This progress came before, and continued during, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, enabling each side to present it in a manner that served its own political interests. On the ground, however, little has changed. Humanitarian aid continues to enter only to the extent permitted by the Israeli military command, with no meaningful improvement in the humanitarian catastrophe facing Gaza’s population. Meanwhile, the mediators continue their efforts to preserve Trump’s initiative and prevent its collapse, since its failure would effectively give Israel a free hand in Gaza without any accompanying political horizon. In East Jerusalem, tensions continue to escalate at a rapid pace. Incursions by Religious Zionist groups into the Al Aqsa Mosque compound are becoming increasingly frequent, while most Palestinians from the West Bank remain barred from accessing the site, with age restrictions imposed on worshippers. At the same time, Israel continues its gradual intervention in the administration and institutional structure of Al Aqsa Mosque, despite the Hashemite custodianship that has historically overseen the holy site. These measures serve two clearly defined objectives: imposing a temporal and spatial division of Al Aqsa Mosque, similar to the arrangement imposed at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and entrenching the Israeli narrative of a “united Jerusalem” as the exclusive capital of the State of Israel. In response to these developments in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and amid a comprehensive political, economic, and security blockade, the Palestinian National Authority has sought to expand its channels of communication with the White House. Its aim is to prevent the implementation of the Israeli project to dismantle the Palestinian statehood and to avert the collapse of the Oslo Accords, which continue to serve as the principal legal reference for the international community’s peace efforts. Within this context, the local elections held earlier this year, with participation exceeding half of all registered voters, acquired political significance extending well beyond their administrative purpose. Likewise, the announcement of dates for legislative and presidential elections, together with the continued activity of unions, professional associations, and national institutions, including the recent congress of the General Union of Palestinian Students in Beirut, reflects an effort to revitalize Palestinian political life and preserve the legitimacy of its institutions. These initiatives converge with Arab and international support around a common objective: ensuring that Palestinians remain on their land, preventing forced displacement, and preserving the cohesion of Palestinian society in the face of policies of attrition and fragmentation. So far, Palestinian society, particularly in the West Bank, has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to resist attempts to drag it into a comprehensive confrontation that would serve the Israeli agenda, choosing instead patience, restraint, and stronger social solidarity. Yet none of this means that the situation has stabilized or that the balance of power has been settled. The region as a whole is passing through a transitional phase in which the old order continues to erode while the contours of a new political order have yet to emerge. For Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, what is unfolding today is therefore not the end of the conflict, but merely another chapter in its long history. The new has yet to be born.

Over the course of three decades, Hamas evolved from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood into an armed resistance movement at the end of 1987, before becoming the governing authority in the Gaza Strip following its takeover from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. From that point onward, Hamas ceased to be merely another Palestinian faction. It is true that the movement had come to power through democratic and peaceful elections, with Ismail Haniyeh serving as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Yet the bloody takeover, which claimed the lives of more than 120 members of the security forces and Fatah, as well as 39 civilians during five days of fierce attacks on Palestinian Authority institutions and the arrest of dozens of their personnel, according to reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross, fundamentally altered the political landscape. Several leaders, including Mohammed Dahlan, fled by sea to Egypt. Around 50,000 government employees stopped reporting to work, while the Palestinian National Authority’s jurisdiction became effectively confined to the West Bank. Following its overthrow of the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy, Hamas was no longer simply a political faction or a democratic partner in government. It chose instead to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and exercise exclusive control there, while making the downfall of the Ramallah leadership and the rejection of the Oslo Accords central pillars of its political agenda. Hamas under Ismail Haniyeh During the first decade of Ismail Haniyeh’s leadership, up to 2017, the movement underwent profound transformations in its relationship with Palestinian society, its political leadership and the various factions of the national movement. Its ties with the Arab world, the broader Muslim world and the international community also evolved significantly. At the same time, its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, experienced a qualitative leap in both military capabilities and weaponry, reaching its peak under the command of Yahya Sinwar. These developments reshaped Hamas’ internal balance of power. With its center of gravity firmly established in the Gaza Strip and its popular influence expanding across the West Bank, the movement also benefited from a broad wave of support throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, fostered by the international leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which, according to the author, took advantage of its favorable relationship with the US administration during Barack Obama’s presidency. These internal realignments ultimately led to the sidelining of Khaled Meshaal, who had headed the Political Bureau for thirteen years. After moving its permanent headquarters from Amman to Istanbul and later to Doha, Ismail Haniyeh combined the leadership of the Gaza government with the presidency of Hamas’ Political Bureau. Yet despite his management of both the movement’s internal and external balances, Ismail Haniyeh likely never imagined that the day would come when he would be forced to leave the Gaza Strip and live in exile, as Yahya Sinwar, the new commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, consolidated his authority. Sinwar eventually came to dominate not only Hamas’ military apparatus but also the movement’s political and governmental institutions. Thus, the chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau joined his predecessor, Khaled Meshaal, in exile, while formally retaining both his title and his position as head of the Hamas government. The circumstances surrounding the departure of Haniyeh and many other senior leaders and founding cadres remain unclear, however, and are unlikely to be fully understood until the movement itself chooses to disclose its own account. Nor were Hamas’ internal rivalries limited to the geographical divide between Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora. They also reflected competing political and ideological currents: those loyal to the international leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood; political leaders whose regional relationships revolved around Türkiye, Qatar and Iran; and military commanders of a more pragmatic disposition, some more radical than others. While one camp sought to maximize the benefits of its alliance with Iran, another preferred to cultivate a broader network of regional relationships in order to widen its room for maneuver and consolidate its influence, without ruling out contacts with either the United States or Israel whenever circumstances required. It was within this environment that Khalil al-Hayya emerged as Hamas’ leading figure in the Gaza Strip and as one of Yahya Sinwar’s closest associates. According to numerous individuals familiar with Sinwar’s military career, he was known for placing his trust in only a very small circle of people. Those same sources argue that Khalil al-Hayya’s central role in negotiations stemmed precisely from the confidence Sinwar placed in him. When Sinwar assumed the leadership of Hamas’ Political Bureau, one week after Ismail Haniyeh’s death at the end of July 2024, he appointed al-Hayya as his deputy. Sinwar’s assassination only two months after taking office as chairman of the Political Bureau immediately reopened the succession battle. Backed by Hamas’ leadership inside Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya ultimately defeated Khaled Meshaal and became the movement’s fifth Political Bureau chief, placing its principal levers of power under his control. His rise to the top of the organization, however, cannot be explained by succession alone. Political and media sources, including several Egyptian analysts speaking on regional television networks, have claimed that negotiations held in Doha following Israel’s widely reported strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders were attended by senior security representatives from Israel, the United States and Türkiye. According to those accounts, the talks resulted in Israeli commitments to halt the targeted killings of Hamas leaders and to end efforts to pursue them. Supporters of this interpretation argue that subsequent developments appear to lend credibility to that assessment. Viewed through this lens, Khalil al-Hayya’s Hamas would no longer resemble either the Hamas of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin or that of Yahya Sinwar. Instead, its new leadership would be focused on implementing political and security understandings under primarily Qatari and Turkish sponsorship. According to this analysis, the movement’s future role would therefore differ fundamentally from its previous one. Preserving its hold on power, whatever the political, human or material cost, would become its overriding objective. The survival of its authority would take precedence over the welfare of the population. Al-Hayya’s Program At the beginning of this week, the movement’s new leader delivered his first public address, outlining what he described as his principal objectives: First, to bring Israeli military operations to an end and secure Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Second, to restore the basic conditions for life, prevent the forced displacement of the population, launch reconstruction efforts, and conclude a prisoner exchange agreement involving Palestinian detainees. Third, to initiate a national dialogue aimed at rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization on democratic foundations. Fourth, to strengthen Hamas’ relations with its Arab and Muslim environment. Fifth, to coordinate international efforts to bring Israel’s military campaign to an end. Sixth, to call upon the United Nations to provide protection for the Palestinian people and hold Israeli wartime leaders accountable before international courts. Through an agenda whose implementation would require the backing of the world’s major powers and a broad international coalition, Khalil al-Hayya speaks with confidence and from what he portrays as a position of strength. Yet he does so from the comfort of a hotel room. Meanwhile, on the ground, the military confrontation between Hamas and Israel has become inseparable from the areas sheltering displaced civilians, where vast numbers of people are crowded into makeshift encampments. The population is thus made to bear the consequences twice over: first through Hamas’ own security apparatus, tasked with controlling nearly two million displaced Palestinians within their own homeland; and second through Israel’s pursuit of Hamas operatives, with the resulting airstrikes, destruction, territorial expansion, and the restrictions that, according to the author, are then invoked to justify limiting the delivery of water, food and medicine. Between this harsh reality and the movement’s declared political program, misery, despair and frustration continue to accumulate. Social media platforms across the Gaza Strip echo with cries of distress that Hamas’ leadership appears unwilling to hear, focusing instead on the future of its rule and the preservation of its own interests. Three Options Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly argued that Palestinians face only three possible choices: emigration, death, or submission. According to the author, this vision is shared by a government committed to expanding Israeli settlements throughout the Palestinian territories. The repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, together with the wave of violence carried out by settlers under the protection of the Israeli army, should therefore not be understood as a response to any existential threat. Rather, they form part of the implementation of what several ministers in the governing coalition have described as a “Decisive Plan,” aimed at extending Israeli settlement activity and annexing every part of the Palestinian territories that can be brought under the control of the settlers and the Israeli military. With parliamentary elections scheduled for October of this year approaching, several members of the government have also made no secret of their desire to bring about the collapse of the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah and eliminate what they regard as the last Palestinian institutional framework still committed to a political settlement based on the two-state solution. The leading figures of Israel’s most hardline religious nationalist camp openly argue that such a solution constitutes, in their view, the true existential threat facing the State of Israel. The current wave of violence sweeping across the West Bank and targeting the Palestinian people, the indigenous inhabitants of the land, risks extinguishing the last remaining prospects for a peace founded on international law. So long as the international community confines itself to speaking about peace without creating the conditions necessary to achieve it in Palestine, the result, according to the author, can only be the perpetuation of an open-ended conflict.

With the proclamation of the independence of the Hebrew State on 15 May 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out. Israelis refer to it as the War of Independence, while Arabs remember it as the Nakba (“the Catastrophe”). The newly established Israeli army confronted the forces of Egypt, the Emirate of Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. During the first phase of the fighting, the military balance remained fragile and inconclusive. The Arab armies fielded roughly 28,000 troops, supported by a limited number of aircraft and armored vehicles. Israel, meanwhile, relied on a force of nearly 40,000 fighters, whose core consisted of the Haganah and the Palmach. After two months of fighting, a first ceasefire was arranged in July 1948. During this period, the Israeli military leadership succeeded in unifying the Jewish armed organizations, notably the Irgun and Lehi (the Stern Group), thereby establishing both a monopoly over military force and a unified chain of political command. At the same time, Israel recruited tens of thousands of additional soldiers and acquired significant quantities of modern weaponry from Czechoslovakia, then part of the Soviet sphere of influence. The Israeli army soon numbered close to 100,000 troops, equipped with aircraft, tanks, and artillery. From that moment onward, it achieved a strategic superiority over the combined Arab armies, an advantage that, in many respects, has endured to this day. It was in this context that the armistice agreements with Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon were signed. In practice, they amounted to a recognition of the reality of the State of Israel, albeit one cloaked in a misleading political discourse designed to placate an outraged Arab public, particularly the Palestinians. From that point onward, Israel seized the strategic initiative, first during the 1956 Suez War, and later in the June 1967 War. The leaders of the Hebrew State were convinced that Israel’s national security rested not only on the superiority of its armed forces, but also on its strategic position in the Middle East as an outgrowth of the new international order led by the United States and recognized by the Soviet Union and, with it, the socialist bloc. Yet this alone was not enough. It also required constantly invoking the memory of the Holocaust whenever a Jew, anywhere in the world or in Israel, became the target of verbal abuse, physical harm, or, all the more so, an armed attack. This is how the notion of the “existential threat” came to occupy the center of Israeli political and media discourse, invoked in response to every challenge facing Israel, whether it originated from another state, an armed organization, or an individual, and whether Israel was acting offensively or claiming the right of self-defense. Over time, the “existential threat” became a kind of mathematical constant, embedded in every strategic equation and treated as an inescapable premise. The expression can be found in the writings and speeches of Israeli politicians and generals, in the analyses produced by research centers, and in the work of leading intellectuals. In this respect, there is little distinction between Israel’s political and academic elites and a public whose collective imagination remains deeply shaped by an existential anxiety. Even some of the New Historians, who once challenged this conventional narrative, eventually retreated under sustained and well-documented pressure. The events that followed the 7 October 2023 attack demonstrated how swiftly the West came to Israel’s aid at a moment when its military capabilities had been shaken and its security establishment had failed to contain the surprise assault of Al-Aqsa Flood, both in its scale and in its immediate consequences. Palestinian Sunni Islamist extremism succeeded in exposing many of the structural weaknesses within Israel’s military establishment, plunging its leadership into shock, uncertainty, and strategic disorientation. Had it not been for the direct involvement of Pentagon generals, who effectively assumed operational leadership during the first week in order to restore military, security, and political coherence, though not psychological stability, the outcome might have been very different. It took more than a month, together with the near-total devastation of the Gaza Strip, for Israel’s military establishment to regain the operational rhythm now set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Israel Katz. More than a thousand days have now passed since that catastrophe. The consequences of the “Flood” unleashed by Palestinian Sunni Islamist extremism continue to deepen for the people of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while the surge of Israeli military power has continued to spread across the wider Middle East. Matters have reached the point where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly told the leaders of countries such as India and the United Arab Emirates that they no longer needed to go through the White House. “All they had to do,” he said, “was turn to him personally, and everything would be taken care of.” When one looks today at the deployment of Israeli forces across the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Lebanon, the scale of the strategic leap made possible by the events of 7 October becomes unmistakable. Yet the notion of an “existential threat” remains the cornerstone of Israel’s strategic doctrine. It now has three distinct faces that must be eliminated. Three Faces Orders have been issued to neutralize each of these three faces in the name of eliminating what is portrayed as an existential threat to the State and the nation. The First Face The first is Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician, neonatologist, and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip. Time and again, he was ordered through loudspeakers to evacuate the wounded so that the hospital could be completely destroyed. Soon afterwards, shells began raining down from both the air and the ground. Yet he remained at his post, saving lives, above all those of children . His own son, who had not yet reached the age of twenty, was killed at the entrance to the hospital. The father buried him beside the hospital wall, then returned immediately to caring for his young patients and the wounded. When the medical complex was eventually reduced to rubble, Dr. Abu Safiya and his entire staff were arrested before the eyes of the world in live television broadcasts. Arrested in December 2024, he remains in detention to this day, where, according to testimony collected by international organizations, he has been subjected to systematic torture intended to destroy his humanity. He continues to be held without formal charges under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law. The investigation into his alleged links with armed groups has, to date, failed to produce any evidence. Yet he is still alive. And he, too, continues to embody an existential threat. The Second Face She is neither a doctor nor an anonymous figure whose identity, convictions, or commitments are unknown. Nor does she live in Israel or Palestine. She is the Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who, alongside photojournalist Zeinab Faraj, documented the daily lives of the people of South Lebanon. In the village of Tayri, she was targeted twice: first when the convoy in which she was travelling came under attack, and again when the house where she had sought refuge was itself struck, while rescue teams were prevented from reaching the site. Is this not the very definition of a premeditated assassination? All of this was accompanied by official claims that she had repeatedly been warned. According to the Lebanese Order of Journalists, twenty-seven Lebanese media professionals have been killed since the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The World Health Organization has also documented 137 attacks against healthcare facilities and medical infrastructure. The Third Face In this same month of July, on 8 July 1972, the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh was shaken by a car bomb that killed the writer, artist, and editor-in-chief of Al-Hadaf , Ghassan Kanafani, together with his niece Lamees Najm, who was not yet seventeen years old. Kanafani himself was only thirty-six. He had portrayed Palestine through his drawings, written novels and short stories translated into seventeen languages, authored countless political editorials, and served as a leading figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Yet he never carried a weapon. Since then, the writer, the journalist, and the intellectual have themselves become existential threats. Today, 265 journalists have been killed in the war in Palestine, while hundreds more have been wounded. International organizations have also documented attacks on, and the destruction of, dozens of media institutions. Thus, the doctor, the journalist, and the writer become targets for assassination or imprisonment simply because they practice their profession. This cannot simply be accepted as the natural order of things. Independent legal case files should be prepared for every victim, outside any official framework, and each case pursued individually before the competent courts. Israel’s invocation of the so-called existential threat can no longer be allowed to serve as a shield against accountability, a means of escaping justice, and an instrument for continuing to blackmail the international community.

The funeral of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was one of the largest state funerals ever held in the Middle East. Popular emotion overwhelmed the official ceremony, transforming it into a spontaneous farewell as immense crowds accompanied their leader’s coffin to its final resting place in 1970. In November 2004, three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia, bid farewell to the Palestinian symbol Yasir Arafat. Paris honored him with the dignity reserved for monarchs, Cairo welcomed Palestine, while in Ramallah every official arrangement was overtaken by the sheer weight of popular grief. Palestinians carried the coffin on their own shoulders, their eyes overflowing with tears for the man who had forged their national identity. His passing was rendered even more poignant by Ariel Sharon’s reference to “the hand of fate.” The Palestinian people answered with unmistakable defiance: “Do not rejoice. Justice is on our side.” In Britain, the world witnessed in 2022 what was arguably the most magnificent state funeral of this century: that of Queen Elizabeth II, attended by hundreds of heads of state, government leaders, and reigning monarchs. Every detail of the ceremony had been meticulously planned by the late Queen herself. It reflected the institutional wisdom of the monarchy through her own character and her deeply pragmatic vision of the state, society, and public life. One could almost imagine that she had consciously accompanied her own funeral, content with what she had accomplished for both the Crown and the Kingdom. Yesterday, millions of loyal followers of the Supreme Leader marched behind Ali Khamenei, shedding abundant tears with remarkable discipline. Surrounding him stood only a handful of foreign dignitaries, but countless generals and senior officials of the Islamic Republic. The ceremony thus became a vast demonstration of loyalty, now the regime’s foremost source of strength after the destruction of its power. Yet such a display is unlikely to persuade the tens of millions of Iranians who watched from afar that the security apparatus, even with the backing of the regime’s faithful supporters, is capable of preserving the system on its own. In reality, the procession seemed less like the funeral of a leader than the funeral of the regime itself, a regime that, when its own day of collapse comes, will find no one left to accompany it. A Cascade of Challenges The first statement came from the Supreme Leader, who declared: “We will certainly take revenge, and soon.” In doing so, he invoked the language of religious obligation, effectively calling upon anyone capable of carrying out such an act. The rhetoric immediately recalled the fatwa issued decades earlier by the first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for the killing of the British novelist Salman Rushdie following the publication of his celebrated novel The Satanic Verses . The second statement came from the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who announced the “closure of the Strait of Hormuz until further notice.” Although the Supreme Leader did not explicitly identify the target of this promised retaliation, the crowds gathered at his predecessor’s funeral filled that silence by chanting, “Death to Trump” and “Death to Netanyahu.” Between threats of assassination and revenge issued by the regime’s highest religious authority, the announced closure of the Strait, and attacks on commercial shipping in Omani territorial waters, the conflict has entered a new and far more dangerous phase. The initial understanding between the parties has collapsed, the truce has unraveled, and competing interpretations of broadly worded provisions have given way to a renewed exchange of military blows, each side acting according to its own capabilities. Many of those who criticized the wording of the memorandum overlooked one fundamental point: it had already fulfilled Washington’s primary objective by enabling the United States to disengage from the war in its original form. The Iranian leadership, so confident in its negotiating skill, quickly discovered that what it regarded as “Persian cunning” was no match for American statecraft. In international affairs, practical outcomes are determined by actual balances of power rather than by political swagger or clever tactical maneuvering. It was sufficient for Washington to acknowledge, at least for the time being, Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait, while confining that recognition strictly to internationally recognized territorial waters. Meanwhile, coordination with the Sultanate of Oman enabled the U.S. Navy to bypass Iranian restrictions by using the southern maritime route running along Oman’s coastline. Tehran thereby lost its last meaningful strategic card, while simultaneously alienating a mediator that had long remained cooperative and remarkably accommodating, even within its own territorial waters. This marked the turning point that unsettled the Iranian leadership. Having substituted the “Strait card” for the “nuclear card,” it believed it had successfully diverted negotiations away from their original objective, namely changing the regime’s behavior, toward a debate focused solely on whether the Strait of Hormuz would remain open or be closed. In doing so, the White House succeeded in reshuffling the strategic deck, both on the American domestic stage and within NATO, following the outcomes of the Ankara Summit. Before the Supreme Leader’s funeral procession had even come to an end, Iran’s military leadership discovered that reality had fallen far short of its expectations. The victories it had promised its own public evaporated faster than a stick of incense burns away. If the euphoria surrounding what Tehran portrayed as a diplomatic triumph following the announcement of the memorandum ultimately disappeared along Oman’s southern maritime corridor, the mobilization of millions of supporters chanting slogans of death and revenge remains incapable of altering the actual balance of power, even if it temporarily boosts the morale of a people living under oppression and led by a leadership largely indifferent to the cost of its own policies. The Iranian leadership thus found itself confronted with the American-Omani alternative, one designed to keep the Strait of Hormuz permanently open in accordance with international law. It is against this backdrop that the recent surge of radicalization and recklessness should be understood, reflected in attacks on passing commercial vessels, on several Arab Gulf states, and on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. One fact, however, stands out. Iran has shown extraordinary caution in avoiding any direct strike against Israel. Likewise, a direct military confrontation with the United States Navy remains entirely out of the question. This reflects a straightforward strategic calculation. From Tehran’s perspective, attacks against commercial shipping and Arab states do not provoke Washington’s anger. On the contrary, they encourage those same countries to purchase additional American air defense systems. At the same time, the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, have no intention of allowing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to drag them into a war on Tehran’s timetable or under its chosen conditions. They possess a defensive strategy rooted in a position of strength and increasingly exercise an influential regional and international political role. If mediation constitutes one expression of that strategy, it serves broader long-term political objectives. This has become even more apparent since Oman moved away from its previous posture, while Qatar’s mediation has gradually been reduced to its financial dimension, Doha continuing to hold substantial Iranian assets frozen under international sanctions. Meanwhile, Islamabad, Riyadh, Cairo, and Ankara continue to maintain open channels with the Iranian presidency and the Foreign Ministry in order to preserve diplomatic mediation. Every day, these four capitals reaffirm their opposition to war and their determination to extinguish its flames through the application of international law, particularly regarding freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. That, precisely, is where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has suffered its most significant defeat. We have now entered a war of attrition on multiple fronts. Day after day, Iran’s new leadership provides the White House with everything it needs to sustain this war through the end of the year. Such a trajectory serves the American president’s domestic political agenda while also strengthening his position internationally. It unfolds against the backdrop of a noticeable easing of partisan tensions in the United States, without suggesting that genuine political unity or consensus has taken hold within the superpower that continues to shape much of the global agenda. An Independent Decision For the first time, the Lebanese state is actively shaping its own future through a clear-eyed and realistic assessment of international conflicts, particularly the ongoing confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. That confrontation has resulted in the return of the Israeli occupation to South Lebanon, alongside continuing violations of Lebanese airspace. It has also, for the first time, drawn Hezbollah into a war against Israel in support of Gaza and Iran following the death of Ali Khamenei, even as the organization now stands outside the former equation of “Army, People, and Resistance,” following the implementation of the state’s monopoly on arms through its legitimate institutions. It can therefore be argued that, without the decision establishing the state’s monopoly on arms, Lebanon would never have been able to enter negotiations that produced the memorandum. That agreement now requires sustained political stewardship and the management of highly complex files, tasks well within the capabilities of Lebanese diplomacy, whose experience in Arab and international affairs has long been recognized. Most of those criticizing this bold and courageous step are the very same actors who fundamentally oppose the principle of the state’s monopoly on arms. They likewise maintain reservations about the Taif Agreement and the regional and domestic balance it established. Consequently, objections to the Lebanese-Israeli negotiating track cannot be separated from broader opposition to those two foundational decisions, even when some claim, at least rhetorically, to support the Taif Agreement while acting in ways that contradict it. At its core, this is a confrontation between a recent past burdened by policies that treated Lebanon as a geopolitical arena for investment rather than as a nation deserving construction and sacrifice, and a new approach enjoying broad international and Arab support. That support reflects an understanding of the heavy burden imposed by external interference, pressures that exceed the Lebanese state’s capacities and confront it with challenges vis-à-vis Israel that are not of its own making. This understanding has been embodied in successive United Nations resolutions, foremost among them Resolution 425, which settled any dispute regarding Lebanon’s sovereignty over its southern borders. That resolution addressed a historical period extending from the aftermath of the June 1967 War and its consequences, including the rise of Palestinian armed struggle launched from southern Lebanon. It also provided the legal framework for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, allowing the Lebanese state to begin the long process of recovering from successive wars. Today’s negotiations, which build upon the body of international resolutions supporting Lebanon, most notably Resolution 1701, form part of a broader international and Arab effort fundamentally committed to Lebanese sovereignty. That commitment rests on clearly established foundations: the Constitution, the National Pact, the Taif Agreement, the Presidential Oath of Office, and the Ministerial Statement. It is this foundation that enables Lebanon today to make constructive use of both international and Arab legitimacy in narrowing, through political means, the imbalance of power with Israel. That imbalance, however, cannot be reduced without engaging the United States administration itself, the ultimate guarantor of the Hebrew State. Those who seek to belittle Lebanon’s present political efforts to secure understandings capable of protecting the country and opening a path out of its deep crisis are, in reality, attempting to turn the wheel of the state backward in pursuit of narrow interests that bear no relation to Lebanon’s destiny as both a nation and a sovereign state. Against the backdrop of this new war of attrition between Washington and Tehran, safeguarding Lebanon from the repercussions of the Strait of Hormuz has become more important than ever. Iran continues to invest wherever opportunities remain. The more its strategic cards collapse, the more determined it becomes to reclaim control over Lebanon’s independent national decision-making.

The latest Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo at the beginning of this month, carrying the movement’s responses to the High Commissioner of the Peace Council, Nikolay Miladinov’s questions as well as his ever changing proposals. This time, the delegation was not headed by Khalil al Hayya, who nevertheless conveyed a firm and unwavering position on the issue of the exclusive control of weapons, stressing that any such step could only be implemented gradually, according to a timetable tied to a clearly defined political process guaranteeing the Palestinian people’s right to self determination and the exercise of their sovereignty . At the same time, the movement demanded payment of all outstanding sums owed to the civil servants who had served under its government through the “Gaza Administration Committee,” while seeking to maintain its role throughout the transitional period. Israeli positions, for their part, continue to reject any arrangement that would allow Hamas to retain a military wing once the transitional period comes to an end. Functional Power Sharing The fragmentation of the Gaza Strip into two distinct zones is becoming increasingly entrenched. To the east lies the theater of Israeli military operations. To the west lives the overwhelming majority of the population, under the authority of Hamas’ security apparatus and police, surviving amid the remnants of tents, the ruins of demolished homes, and the meager remains of food, water, and medicine. In that part of the territory, Hamas exercises authority, collects taxes, and manages commercial activity with a handful of traders whose business practices are no less ruthless than Hamas’ security apparatus is in its dealings with the population. Whenever the issue of weapons and their exclusive control in the Gaza Strip arises, it is worth recalling that the Trump administration, together with the Turkish and Qatari mediators, came to the conclusion that Hamas should retain its arsenal until the transitional period has been completed. The equation is therefore a simple one. Israel rejects Hamas’ weapons, while the movement has hardened its demands regarding the exclusive control of arms to the point of seeking both collective and individual guarantees for the future. Meanwhile, Nikolay Miladinov shuttles between the parties in an effort to weave together an agreement capable of satisfying both Israel and Hamas. According to this intractable equation, and in line with the instructions of the US administration, with Israel’s approval, the Gaza Administration Committee is to begin its work in the eastern part of the Strip, under the direct control of the Israeli occupation forces, although no timetable for implementation has yet been established. Hamas would thus continue to exercise authority over the western part of the Strip, resulting in a dual authority that can only be understood as an expression of functional power sharing between the two sides. This arrangement only deepens the population’s suffering, locking it into a state of stalemate and deadlock, while food security, water supplies, and healthcare continue to collapse at an accelerating pace, leaving disease, hunger, and thirst to ravage the people of Gaza. They find themselves simultaneously under the tutelage of the Peace Council, the occupation of the Israeli army, and the rule of Hamas. By adopting the resolution establishing the “Peace Council” on 17 November 2025, the United Nations Security Council did not intend to place the Palestinians under President Donald Trump’s tutelage. Rather, its purpose was to bring an end to a war of extermination that had become detrimental to Israel’s interests and international image, while authorizing the deployment of an international force to help the people of Gaza survive the genocide they are enduring. Eight months have passed since the Peace Council was established, yet negotiations remain stalled at the implementation of the first of the twenty points set out in the Trump initiative. Red Lines The fifth round of negotiations has concluded without the slightest meaningful progress. The red lines of both sides remain irreconcilable, reflecting a fundamental deadlock between Israel and Hamas over the issue of the exclusive control of weapons and the future of governance in the Gaza Strip, while both await the change in the Palestinian Authority’s leadership following the legislative and presidential elections scheduled for the end of this year. After every setback in the negotiations, Egyptian diplomacy steps forward with fresh proposals aimed at keeping the talks alive. Its objective is to prevent Israel from evading its international obligations and from imposing a new reality in the Gaza Strip by turning the Palestinian Egyptian border into an Israeli Egyptian border, with all the strategic implications such a transformation would have for Egypt’s national security as well as for the Egyptian Israeli Peace Treaty. From this geopolitical standpoint, Egyptian diplomacy is working to strengthen the role of the Palestinian National Authority and secure both its political and institutional presence. It has succeeded in reviving the Agreement on Crossings, restoring the official Palestinian presence with European participation as well, and securing an agreement for the deployment of fifteen thousand police officers, in three successive waves, in order to help safeguard people’s lives in the Gaza Strip. To this should be added the symbolic participation of the city of Deir al Balah in the municipal elections held a few months ago. Cairo remains more determined than ever to prevent the negotiations from collapsing, despite the wishes of Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals. To achieve this objective, Egyptian diplomacy employs both flexibility and firmness in its dealings with all parties, including Israel. Working alongside the three mediating states, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye, Cairo is closely monitoring the evolution of the conflict between Washington, Tehran, and Tel Aviv, as well as the still open possibility of a return to levels of violence that could erupt once again, however tightly they may be contained. The upcoming political and electoral processes in the United States and Israel could yet produce outcomes that would undermine the prospects for a broad international and regional peace process. At the same time, Turkish and Qatari policies are following a different course. They seek to forge a new relationship between Hamas and the White House administration, drawing on their long experience with radical political Islamist movements, particularly the Afghan Taliban movement. That experience, long regarded by Khaled Meshaal, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, as a model to be emulated, could help reshape the movement and reintegrate it into the Palestinian political system. Without the flexibility shown by both the previous and the current US administrations, Hamas’ leadership would hardly have pushed its negotiating demands so far. Its strategy rests on the expectation that Ankara and Doha will succeed in rehabilitating its role in the Palestinian cause. This, in turn, would enable the White House to impose its own terms on both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, thereby lowering the ceiling of the national aspirations the Palestinian people would be willing to accept. This game has continued ever since the Sharon government facilitated Hamas’ rise to power through its 2007 coup against Palestinian legitimacy. If this game continues to guarantee the same outcome, why shouldn’t it be played again? A Drop of Water As Israel continues to block the entry of humanitarian aid, the crisis over access to clean water grows ever more severe. Every day, the Gaza Strip requires 140,000 cubic metres of water to meet the needs of drinking, hospitals, and food. The United Nations continues to warn of the collapse of water security, while Hamas, for its part, shows neither in its rhetoric nor in its conduct the slightest concern for the people. To Hamas, weapons matter more than a single drop of water.

In 2005, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1612, providing for the identification of parties responsible for grave violations against children in armed conflicts and wars, whether they are states or de facto authorities such as militias and illegitimate local powers. Pursuant to this resolution, the “List of Shame” is issued annually, ranking states and organizations according to the number and nature of the violations they commit. The annual report reveals that armed and security forces committed 38,000 violations against children worldwide over the past year. It covers sixteen countries, most notably Afghanistan, Mali, Haiti, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Iran and Israel. Israeli armed and security forces alone account for one quarter of all documented violations, with more than 12,425 violations committed against five thousand children whose cases have been verified, while investigations remain ongoing into another five thousand cases. As a result, Israeli security forces have once again been identified as the principal perpetrators of these violations, topping the List of Shame for the second time. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell addressed the issue, stressing that: “The figures contained in this report do not reflect the true scale of violations against children, since the report includes only cases that have been verified. A great many violations go unreported for a variety of reasons, including difficulties in gaining access to affected areas, fear of reprisals and other obstacles.” The report also shows that 70 percent of all deaths and injuries resulted from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. Israel’s position at the top of the “List of Shame” extends beyond what is taking place in Palestine. Violations committed against children in Lebanon and Syria are no less severe, nor are those suffered by the Iranian people, who already endure the brutality of the mullahs’ regime. These violations nevertheless pose a profound challenge to the entire civilized world, especially to democratic states that uphold international humanitarian law and the conventions they themselves helped shape and promote. International law provides for the prosecution not only of the principal perpetrators of such crimes, but also of those who become complicit in them, in accordance with the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Complicity is therefore regarded as a form of indirect participation encompassing material support, logistical assistance and moral backing. This legal responsibility also extends to arms manufacturers, along with all companies whose activities, directly or indirectly, contribute to supplying the military effort of those responsible for the crime of genocide, including technology and artificial intelligence companies. In her remarks, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, declared: “Failure to act does not stem from ignorance. It is the result of a conscious political choice.” In light of this testimony, it becomes legitimate to reassess the positions of every state connected, directly or indirectly, to crimes committed against children across the world, wherever they may be and whatever the reasons for which their childhood has been violated. The gulf between what international law prescribes and the present condition of humanity remains immense. Remarkable scientific progress does not, in itself, amount to genuine civilizational progress. The Capital Negotiations over the status of East Jerusalem were postponed until the end of the five year transitional period established under the Oslo Accords. As the turn of the third millennium approached, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak refused to engage in discussions on the issues of a final settlement with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The mediation undertaken by U.S. President Bill Clinton before leaving the White House proved equally unsuccessful, as neither side accepted the proposals he put forward. Ariel Sharon then chose a different course, one of carefully orchestrated provocation, coordinated with Ehud Barak through his entry into the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. This first triggered a broad popular Palestinian uprising, followed by a return to armed struggle under the leadership of Hamas. After becoming Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon ordered Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on 15 August 2005, under what became known as the Disengagement Plan. He presented this as a model for resolving the conflict while preserving the vision of Greater Israel, withdrawing only from Palestinian urban population centers as the Judaization of East Jerusalem continued in parallel under the annexation policy Israel has enforced since the end of the June 1967 war. That model continued to be implemented in pursuit of the Judaization of the capital of the State of Palestine. The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were placed under a special legal status that denied them Palestinian identity documents while also withholding Israeli citizenship, unlike Palestinians living inside Israel. Instead, they were issued cards bearing the designation “permanent resident,” granting them the right to vote only in Jerusalem’s municipal elections, while excluding them from elections to the Knesset. Every time Palestinian legislative elections were held, the same battle resurfaced over the right of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents to vote for the Palestinian National Authority and its Legislative Council. Israel has consistently opposed their participation in Palestinian elections, even though, under international law, they remain the inhabitants of occupied territory entitled to international protection. During his first term, President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem by relocating the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to the city, with little regard for the consequences of such a decision. He went even further by closing the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington. Last May, the Knesset approved, on first reading, a bill establishing a “Judea and Samaria Heritage Authority,” the biblical name used for the West Bank. The bill still requires second and third readings before becoming law. Once enacted, all archaeological sites across the West Bank would fall under the authority of the Israeli government. These sites, found almost everywhere, span successive civilizations from the Canaanite period through the Roman and Ottoman eras, enabling that authority to restore, build, buy and sell without significant constraint. Such a measure would enable Israel to seize any area of Jerusalem and, more broadly, of the West Bank. From its perspective, the central issue remains the Temple believed, according to its own historical narrative, to lie beneath the Al Aqsa Mosque. With this objective in mind, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has intensified measures targeting the administration of the sanctuary by occupying parts of the compound and stationing soldiers alongside the “Temple Guards Unit,” whose mission is to protect those seeking to enter the mosque compound and perform their religious rituals there. Israeli forces have taken control of four locations within the Al Aqsa compound: the Dome of Imam Al Ghazali, the Dome of Solomon, the Dome of Moses, and the Dar al Hadith building. Security forces have also removed thirty seven guards and employees, reducing the number of Palestinian guards from fifty to twenty on each shift, while revoking the work permits of thirty employees residing in the West Bank. At the same time, the Israeli police have launched a recruitment campaign for new volunteers to join the “Temple Mount Unit,” drawing from among the most radical Jewish extremists. These policies, which undermine the agreements concluded with the Palestinian Authority and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the custodian of the Al Aqsa Mosque since the 1920s, have elicited from Netanyahu nothing more than a brief statement claiming that nothing has changed on the ground. Yet despite its limited support, the Israeli movement Peace Now remains the only organization to have openly condemned the bill, declaring: “If this bill is approved by the Knesset, it will constitute, by every standard, an act of annexation accompanied by the large scale confiscation of Palestinian land.”